A team of researchers from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), which is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA’s) in-house research agency, has recently discovered an approach to help destroy Salmonella in raw eggs and egg products using radio frequency (RF) technology.

To help eliminate Salmonella — which is a bacteria associated with foodborne illnesses — the researchers are using thermal technology to pasteurize eggs and subsequently inactivate Salmonella cells within a shorter processing time than traditional pasteurization processes that can take up to an hour.

Source: ARS

In the lab, the team determined that the water molecules within eggs rotate and align with the RF instrument's electric field, thereby causing — through molecular friction — the liquid within the egg to quickly heat up and reduce Salmonella by 99.999% within approximately 24 minutes.

Once pasteurized, the RF-processed eggs were refrigerated at 7° C for one week to simulate commercial cold chain temperatures.

"After treatment with the system, no intact Salmonella or sub-lethal Salmonella cell remnants were recovered, and no cell recovery was found in the RF-treated eggs when stored at retail refrigerated temperature," explained the USDA team of researchers. "The egg quality, such as the color and other parameters, were also preserved through the processing."